The Court Can Order You to Text Your Ex-Spouse Instead of Calling
When a couple with minor children gets divorced, they must finalize a parenting plan that covers many aspects of their co-parenting relationship. When you are married to your children’s other parent, you can decide at the last minute which parent is responsible for making doctors’ appointments for the children and which one should drop them off at school, but with a parenting plan, you must decide all of this in advance. The parenting plan, which takes the form of a court order, even specifies which set of grandparents the children can visit on which holidays and even the method of communication the parents must use to contact each other about their children. The purpose of all of this is to prevent conflict, maintain stability in the children’s lives, and ensure that the children get to spend adequate time with both parents. If you are having ongoing parenting conflicts with your ex-spouse, even if they are about apparently minor issues, contact a South Florida child custody lawyer.
When the Court Orders You to Communicate via a Divorce App
Divorce apps might seem like a fad, but the family courts find them sufficiently important and useful that they sometimes specify in parenting plans which app or messaging service the parents should use for communications about co-parenting. Arlene Preudhomme and Garth Bailey divorced in 2010, when their three children were still young. The Original parenting plan required the parties to communicate using Our Family Wizard, a messaging app designed to facilitate communication among divorced parents. Garth eventually let the family’s subscription to Our Family Wizard lapse. In an amended parenting plan, the court required the parents to communicate on a website called talkingparents.com. Talking Parents, unlike Our Family Wizard, is free and does not require a subscription.
The Court Can Also Decide Which Parent Has Possession of the Children’s Passports
Another contentious issue in Arlene and Garth’s co-parenting relationship was the children’s passports. Both parents traveled internationally with the children after the divorce. It is standard for the courts to require a divorced or unmarried parent who wishes to travel internationally with the children to provide the other parent with a detailed itinerary of the international trip at least ten days before departure; this provision existed in Arlene and Garth’s parenting plan. The parties disagreed about which parent should keep the children’s passports when the children were not traveling. In 2018, an appeals court ruled that Garth should keep the passports and that, when Arlene wanted to travel with the children, she should use the Talking Parents website to request the passports from Garth.
Let Us Help You Today
Making travel plans is more difficult after divorce, but you still have a right to take your children on international trips. Your Boca Raton child custody lawyer can help you make plans to travel internationally with your children, even if your ex-spouse makes things difficult. Contact Schwartz | White for help today.
https://www.schwartz-white.com/mental-health-medical-privacy-and-child-custody/
